


XXIV

by thequeenofslurking



Category: Revenge (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, alphabet soup
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-18 01:35:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12378168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thequeenofslurking/pseuds/thequeenofslurking
Summary: 26 oneshots, an A to Z of Revenge. Cross-posted from fanfiction.netFurther tags will be added as the story progresses.





	XXIV

**So you might’ve seen that I’m doing this for _Pretty Little Liars._ I love these things – enough that I’m going to do three. I am taking suggestions for the rest of the alphabet, so if there’s something you would like to see let me know.**

**Chapter 1: Anger**  
Character: Emily.  
Quote: _Anger is a short madness. (Horace)_

The anger takes over slowly at first. It seeps into her bones as a child, one who is still just a bit too young to understand this.

She tries to fight it for a little while, but she isn’t strong enough, she doesn’t know how, and it isn’t as though her faceless foster family will show her what to do – sometimes she thinks she would barely be able to pick them out of a crowd, looks at them and sees a patchwork of people who won’t stick together beyond next year. It’s just a group of people cobbled together and told what to do.

People don’t like her, she knows this. It’s the result that she gets from her surname, the one that has mothers scramble to pick up their children and pull them away, the one that gets reproachful looks from fathers even though she didn’t do anything. This doesn’t matter though, because she is treated as though contaminated and infectious no matter where she goes, and soon enough she learns to accept the burning because she still doesn’t know what it is but it’s preferable to feeling her father’s shadow guilt.

And one day she’s trapped in juvie and bored stupid and she still has a good brain, she’s smart, and so she leafs through books of old poetry. She’s pretty sure that these are the big names, the Whitman and the Byron and the Wordsworth – of course it isn’t as though there’s a teacher to tell her these things, because half the kids in here cop an attitude with authority and the rest of the time they skate by on their behaviour, just waiting until their eighteenth and then they’ll disappear.

(it’s the magic number; once in the system always in the system, she’s determined to break the mold)

Anyway, she deciphers all these words and lines of cramped print – they’re cheap books, the kind that are easy to replace, because that’s what this place is about, isn’t it?

So yeah, she finally understands that her younger self was _angry_ , and it’s such a basic thing that she should have thought of it earlier.

And she’s still angry, and the thought of that anger being a poison or acid is a good one, because poison tarnishes, acid corrodes. There’s a memory – though in here, that memory gets dimmer by the day – of a grand house overlooking the one in which she and her father stayed.

For the first nights after her discovery she lies awake imagining the hallways of the grand house corroded, the flowers in the garden wilting and shrivelling up, cracks in the staircases and chunks of wall missing. She uses her imagination to fill in the blanks of the areas she doesn’t know, and pictures someone tiptoeing down the hall, treading tentatively in case they misstep.

Because guess what – she’s just read Poe and yeah, he’s creepy as hell, but the ideas are still there. An entire house, a family, falling to ruin.

It’s such a satisfying thought and she can’t bring herself to feel badly that the house _and_ the family might succumb to ruin, and the best part is that if she uses her wits she’ll be able to orchestrate it all.

They’re the ones who put her in here and stole her life.

Later she learns that her father is _a)_ dead and _b)_ innocent. Her anger refuels and she wastes the money – not all of it, that would take too long – so, okay, she wastes a few thousand, let’s call it making up for lost time. She’s missed a decade of Christmas and birthdays, and the world has such pretty toys.

They entertain her for a few months but she’s too smart and Nolan finds her too soon, and so she goes on her first acting job: a faintly sulky waitress at a New Year’s do, and yet someone – ally of her father’s, ally of hers – sees through it.

No matter. He’s one to be spared, though actually he dies later and her anger is redoubled again.

To Japan, to fighting lessons and not-fighting lessons, and there’s a boy there who has a similar tale. She doesn’t care though, just focuses on the lessons and sulks the rest of the time, skulking to learn weakness and trying to remember the name of the Grayson boy so she can use him.

And back to Nolan, who says nothing but at least she isn’t spontaneously smashing his crockery and decorations when the mood takes her so at least she’s better, whatever that actually means.

So now she’s got herself a house, just the one she wanted and it’s actually kind of good that Nolan stepped in to buy it for her because he has so much money he never need hear the word no. Besides, she’s still establishing all the documents she needs, so she can’t really buy it for herself.

There’s a secret room she used to hide in when she pretended to be a spy, and so she reopens it, lets it air out and equips it with the minimum. This room gives her a great view of the neighbours, so she can see when there’s a balcony scene going on or, if she listens carefully, can make out the timbre of loud discussions and arguments. Not long after she comes back to the Hamptons, she spends time in there, shrouded by walls, and watches the woman who helped destroy her father as she stands on the balcony, not a care in the world.

Suppressing her anger is second nature to her now, so she does that and walks out to meet the rest of society, remembering the anger that has driven her here and practices her smiles.

She’s pretty, well-educated (at least on paper; she taught herself a lot and money can get _really_ good tutors) and wealthy. There doesn’t seem to be anything amiss with her, or if there does the people either don’t notice or care. It’s probably the former, she decides when she’s back at home and her sandals have carved lines into her ankle, another physical reminder of where anger can bring her.

It can only work to her advantage.

(in the mirror she undoes her makeup and jewellery. welcome back)


End file.
